Move away from the past, cardinal urges Burma’s leaders

Addressing a historic gathering, Cardinal Bo said Burma was a ‘religious nation’ that ‘never had faith in atheism’

Burma’s cardinal addressed a historic gathering of government, military and ethnic leaders in the country’s capital of Naypyitaw yesterday.

In a speech at the conference, Cardinal Charles Bo of Yangon told delegates: “We need to move away from the past, working toward a peace with justice.”

He continued: “For too long we have lived in mutual hatred. Now is the time to assert our oneness.”

Cardinal Bo called Burma “a religious nation” that “never had faith in atheism”. He reminded them of Christianity’s enduring presence in the hospitals and schools, in a nation that in 2015 celebrated 500 years of Catholicism.

“In some of the remotest villages it is the religious leaders who animate the people. In the camps of the [internally displaced people], religious people accompany the suffering people,” he said. “So our presence is helpful in carrying the messages of this conference to all the people, especially those affected by conflict.”

Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party is heading the conference of more than 1,500 participants, including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

In nearly seven decades of fighting, thousands of people have died in Burma; about a quarter of a million have been displaced in the past five years.

At least 20 main ethnic minorities fighting for independence were invited, but three of those groups were later disinvited for continued fighting.

In 1947, Major General Aung San, Suu Kyi’s father and an independence advocate, brokered peace among three ethnic groups and the government. But he was assassinated months later, just before plans for autonomy were to have taken effect.

Subsequent governments failed to meet the agreements, which sparked fighting and gave rise to a military junta that remained in power from the 1960s until recent years.

Suu Kyi, a democracy leader who took up her father’s cause in the 1980s, was a political prisoner under house arrest off and on for most of the past 30 years. Last November, she was voted into office in the country’s first independent elections on a platform of bringing lasting peace.

Several reports on the conference have noted the absence of any representation from the Rohingya minority. International human rights monitors say the Muslim ethnic group has been persecuted by Burma’s Rakhine Buddhists, and most rendered stateless, because of being driven away to bordering countries such as Thailand, where governments have rejected them.

The groups attending the conference are expected to reconvene every six months to note progress on efforts toward forging peace.